Lead Me Home
by The Crow With The Black Eyes
Summary: Harry Potter, the certified orphan, may not be as alone in the world as he thought...


"Dad, could you please-" began my daughter Susan, staring at me hopefully, her mashed potatoes untouched on her plate

Disclaimer: Harrp Potter and all the characters used in this story do not belong to me. I do not propose to gain anything other than personal satisfaction out of this story.

A/N: Harry Potter the certified orphan may not be as alone in the world as he thought! This is really my first fanfiction and also the first time I have tried anything of the sort. It's not exactly top class – do forgive. Constuctive criticism is welcome.

Lead Me Home

Chapter 1

"Dad, could you please-" began my daughter Sarah, staring at me hopefully, her mashed potatoes untouched on her plate. "Not now, Sarah. Whatever it is, it can wait till later," said her mother. "_Mum_," groaned Susan, Sarah's twin sister, "Couldn't we ask now? We might not remember later. Please, Mum…"

"No. I promise I'll remind you later. Promise, all right?"

"Mum, please let me ask Dad now!" Sarah turned imploring blue eyes on her mother.

"Oh, come on, Lily, there's no harm in just one question, is there?" I said, highly amused.

"NO, James Potter. Susan and Sarah won't stop once they start and you know it. Yet you stick up for them. I'm surprised at you!" No matter how sharp her words, my dear wife could never hide her laughter, either in tone or eyes, beautiful green eyes that sparkled and shone when she wanted to laugh.

"Oh, Mum, you're cracking up. You are!" Those twins, they never missed a trick, bless them.

Sarah wolfed down her potatoes. "Mum, may I be excused now?" she gasped, still out of breath from her mouthful-a-microsecond speed.

"Yes, Sarah. You too, Susan," added Lily, seeing that the other girl had also risen. "Thank you!" exclaimed Susan with all her seven-year-old gratitude. The two tore out of the dining room at top speed. "What's the hurry?" I called after them. "We want to talk to Harry!"

I stared after them. " Lily, this Harry business is getting to be more and more fantastic day by day. They actually think he lives there now. They even talk of hearing him answer them. This is ridiculous!"

"Calm down, James. It's _not_ ridiculous, it's true. I've heard him too. You should go into his room and listen. Then pass your opinion." Lily sniffed contemptuously and took the pile of magically laundered clothes up to the twins' room, sweeping out of the room so fast she almost started a cyclone.

I shook my head. This whole Harry thing was crazy. I never should have left Harry's room as it was. I knew, even back then, that 'Harry's room' would cause more worry than it was worth. It wasn't as though my son had ever lived there. He had been dead before his second birthday.

However, if Lily, even skeptical, never-believe-an-unproven-word Lily, actually believed this, there had to be something to it. I resolved that I would give it a shot that night. 

After dinner, I tucked the twins into bed, admonished them not to chatter, and came downstairs. Lily was waiting. "James, I'm very tired. I think I'll go to bed."

I smiled secretly. This was just the opportunity I had been waiting for. "I need to do a little work on the potion." I was compounding a potion to try and cure my old friend Remus Lupin, who was a werewolf. True, I had not met him for fourteen years, but what can I say? I'm an optimist. I never give up hope. " I honestly wish I had Snape here to help me." That at least was true. We had always been at each other's throats, Snape and I, but that man could brew potions. 

"All right, then, James." Lily gave me a sweet, sweet smile. "I'll go up to bed."

"Right." I felt a little guilty about deceiving her- not enough to make me too uncomfortable, but just big enough for me to know that it was there.

I waited for the snap and the click that told me that Lily had entered the bedroom and closed the door. I crept up the stairs and made my way to the room overlooking the little wood grove, with the name Harry upon the door. I opened the door, came in and closed it behind me. 

"You didn't knock."

I whirled around the room, trying to see the origin of that sulky, glum voice.

"I need my privacy. I'm growing!"

I felt weak all of a sudden. I sat down on a chair before my wobbling legs could give way.

"So you've finally deigned to come and visit me, have you? It's about time!"

"Harry?" I whispered.

"Yes, Harry. I'm surprised you even remembered my name."

__I winced. His remarks were caustic and cutting to the extreme. It was obvious the boy had been spoiled rotten. Boy? He was nothing but a voice. Not a very pleasant one, at that.

"Fine. If you don't want to talk to me, then you can leave. There's no sense in making all those funny noises."

I had had enough. I rose and walked out of the room. 

"Close the door on your way out."

I closed it, all right. I only hope it didn't wake up the whole house.

I walked downstairs, disgusted. Was _that_ my son? That spoiled, rude, sulky person?

I went to the kitchen and helped myself to a Chocolate Frog. Chocolate would always minister to a mind deceased.

I crammed my mouth with the poor Frog and did some serious introspecting.

I sat thinking, reasoning and battling with myself way into the night. At the end of all that, I decided that the voice was not really Harry as such. Harry, after all, was dead. This was a strange sort of specter called a Possibility. It had no existence even in the spirit world. In other words, this was only what Harry might have been.

Even that was not much. A son who was so aloof, so rude and inconsiderate was not really something to be proud of. Then again, I would have given worlds solely to have that son, no matter if he was sulky, rude and all the rest of it. I did not even have that comfort. The comfort of knowing that boy, knowing what he looked like, what made him angry, what could move him to tears, what he hated, what he loved. I did not have that. And all because of someone who had hurt me indescribably, someone who had torn my world apart. Someone I had thought of as my friend.

All because of Sirius Black.

Sirius Black had, when we were hiding from Voldemort, been our friend. Sarah and Susan had not been born yet and Harry was just a year old. We had used the Fidelius Charm to hide from Voldemort and Sirius had been our Secret Keeper.

Then suddenly he had begged us to change from him to another of my friends, Peter Pettigrew. What had prompted the change, I had never understood. Anyway, we changed to Wormtail and waited. In a week or so, Wormtail came to our house at night. He had with him two people, a husband and wife. He told us that he had been working undercover as a Death Eater and the two that he had with him were Death Eaters who had fallen out of Voldemort's favour. They were to be tortured and executed. Wormtail had decided that since they had been trying to help the Light Side, they deserved a more humane death. So, he had told Voldemort where we were. When Voldemort came and tried to kill us, he would be battling Polyjuice Potion replicas, not James, Lily and Harry Potter. I was indescribably touched when he told me he would be taking Harry's place and dying in his stead, but I couldn't allow it. The man and I had already switched places and so had Lily and the woman, when Voldemort came. I battled with Voldemort fiercely, but when he was just about to kill me, the man who now looked like James Potter jumped into my place and Voldemort directed the Killing Curse at him at the same moment that I Disapparated. Lily joined me in a far corner of the wood around our house, Godric's Hollow. Peter had said that he would Teleport Harry to us, but before that could happen, there was an earsplitting blast. We could not see the house, but we could tell that was where the explosion came from. It was so forceful that it threw us of our feet and knocked us unconscious. When we came to, Wormtail was standing before us, in tears. He told us that Harry had survived the curse and that Voldemort was gone, temporarily at least, but that Sirius Black's motorbike had come out of nowhere, taken Harry and had left again. He told us that he would be incommunicado for many years if necessary, and that it would probably help if Lily and I lay low for about fifteen years or at least till he could find out what happened to Harry.

That was the last night I ever saw Harry or Peter. The next day, we heard that Black had killed Peter and that he was to be to be tried for first-degree murder. Lily and I assumed he had been acquitted on lack of evidence. There was no report of the trial. 

I shook my head. Memories were not going to help. I had better go to sleep.

_(Not from James Potter's personal narrative)_

_ _

_Harry Potter stared at the letter, reading and rereading it till he knew it by heart. What did this mean? A letter from Peter Pettigrew, of all people, telling him that his parents were alive and well, the true story of that fateful Halloween, and that his mum and dad were living in a place called Godric's Hollow near Ottery St. Catchpole. Harry decided he was going there_

_.In preparation, he packed and Teleported his trunk to somewhere near Godric's Hollow. Teleporting was something he had learned during the holidays; fifth and seventh years were allowed to do magic over the holidays, to practice and revise for their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. He pushed a few things into a bag: his Invisibility Cloak, the album full of photos of his parents, Pettigrew's letter, the Marauders' Map and his wand. He looked at Hedwig, his owl and wondered if he should write to Ron. For some reason he decided not to. If his parents were indeed alive, he felt that it would be highly embarrassing, to say the least, if he met them in the presence of the Weasleys. If it was nottrue, as he feared, then he didn't think that he would be able to bear the disappointment and he did not want the Weasleys to see that, though they were like family to him. _

_His decision taken, he poked Hedwig awake and told her to go to his trunk and on no account to go to Ron's house, except if she was hungry. He then dropped his bag onto the floor of his bedroom and looked around it for what he knew was probably the last time. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated. A second later, a black panther with a wildcat's blazing green eyes was standing where Harry had been. The panther picked up the bag and the broomstick lying on the floor in its mouth and put its paws on the window sill of the room. A high jump, but nothing for a panther. The sinuous cat leaped gracefully and landed without a sound on the street below. It looked up at the half moon, perhaps to get its bearings, and then ran down Privet Drive and disappeared into the night.___

_ _

Chapter 2

****Screams, squeals and shrieks of laughter tumbled downstairs as Sarah and Susan ran down, evidently in the best of excellent spirits. I smiled and picked up one redhead in each arm and said, "Hallo, kiddos! What's the good news?" Sarah giggled and explained, "We were talking to Harry and by the way, he said you went and spoke to him last night, Daddy!" "Yeah"-chimed in Susan, "I thought you didn't believe in him, Daddy!"

"All right, it's time for dinner, you two had better eat."

The twins raced me to the dining room. As we sat down, Sarah having won, Lily said, "Are you going to play Quidditch tonight, James?"

"Yes", I said with a smile, "I'll be playing Chaser tonight, and I hope to beat the other team."

"You'll win hands down, Daddy."

"Course you will!"

Lily smiled. "I suppose you'll be going as Jim Brown, as usual?"

"Yes, I will." Jim Brown was my alias in the wizarding world. We were the Browns to everyone we met, except the twins' friend Ginny, who had never met the rest of the family and knew the twins only by their first names.

When dinner was over I went up, tucked the twins in and then went to talk to Harry. Admittedly it would not be pleasant. But somehow I felt I had to.

I opened the door and went in.

"Hi, Dad." He sounded sheepish and apologetic. "Hi, Harry." I said.

"I'm sorry I was so rude yesterday. I'm not always like that."

I was touched. "Don't worry about it ", I said soothingly.

"You really forgive me?

"Mm-hmm."

"Thanks, Dad."

"You're welcome." No reply. 

"I'll be going to play Quidditch tonight," I said.

"Really? Good luck."

"Thanks. Bye!"

"Bye, Dad. I wish I could hug you. Pretend I did."

I went downstairs, feeling a nice, cuddly kind of feeling.

"Bye." I said to Lily. "I'll have to go."

"Good luck, Jim," she said.

I left for the field. 

"Oi, Jim, that you?" I acquiesced and we began organizing team tactics. We were short of a Beater. I was playing Chaser that night and I offered to scout for someone to play.

As I cruised along, I spotted a man on a broomstick that seemed to be heading for the village. "Hey! Can you play Quidditch?" I called. He looked back at me. "Yes!"he called. "Then come on!" I said. "Let's go." He was wearing a cloak and hood, as all of the Quidditch players did. I was wearing one, too.

I came back triumphantly, the player in tow. He had told me on the way that he played Beater. Perfect! The rest of the team, who were starting to get slightly paranoid, welcomed him. The game started. The new player seemed to take to the rest of the team remarkably well. He was really an excellent flyer. He rounded off the match with a superb swat at the other Seeker and we won the game. The teams, patting him cheerfully on the back, left and I offered the wayfarer a bed for the night, which he accepted gratefully. I was suspicious of this man- he sounded familiar…

I lingered back to talk him. He seemed diffident.

"Who are you?" I enquired.

"No one of importance."

"Tell me." I insisted.

"No."

"Why? Think I'll turn you in to the Ministry or something?"

"You might say that…"

"All right." I had had enough. "I give you my word that the Ministry will know nothing about you – Black."

He threw back his hood. "How-how did you know who I am?"

"Do you know who I am?"

Black went white. He really looked like a vampire, with his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes.

I threw back my own hood. "Hello, Sirius Black."

The fool, he was just staring at me. "P-Prongs? How? _How? Why didn't you-? Where have you-? __HOW?" He seemed to have lost his senses. If I didn't know better, I would have said he was almost glad to see me. _

"So, what happened at the trial after you killed my friend?" I said bitterly.

His expression changed. "Oh, so that's what this is about, is it? I beg to differ, _James. Peter is still alive and well, in the best of health, which is better than what I can say for your SON!"_

"S-s-son? What son? You killed my son thirteen years ago! I'm asking you about the TRIAL!" I felt myself losing control. Any minute now, I was going to hit him. 

"Trial?" he croaked. "What trial? I was not given a trial."

"So you weren't even tried?" I asked, with withering scorn.

"That's not how I would put it." He was talking like a dead man.

"What do you mean?"

"Barty Crouch was the head of Magical Law Enforcement. He gave me no trial."

"You mean you were-" I couldn't finish.

"Sent straight to Azkaban, yes."

"And Peter?"

"He ran, the rat that he was, the coward. He must have realized how easy it would be to keep you out of the way…I suppose he came and saved your lives?"

"You might say that." My voice was less than a whisper.

Sirius was silent as I told him about that night. "T-then the bodies I saw-" he broke off and turned away. I squeezed his shoulder. It shook with suppressed emotion under my hand.

We went back home, talking about the fourteen years that had caused so much pain, so much suffering. It turned out that Peter had done a lot of cruel things. Sirius had met him at the Shrieking Shack- our old haunt. A wave of nostalgia washed over me. "How's Moony?" I asked. "Suddenly I miss him a lot."

Sirius grinned. "He's fine. I was supposed to meet him here, actually."

"What about you? You look like a skeleton!"

"Yes, well, Azkaban takes a lot out of you, you know." He 


End file.
